Those Winter Days (A Winrina Jiminjeong Story)

CHAPTER 21

Saturday 5pm (1 year later)

Winter's P.O.V.

It had been almost a year since that moment we left the cottage and every day since then had seemed like a dream. When we returned to campus, things drifted back into a strange sense of normality. Time drifted away.

I continued my remaining weeks of the semester engrossed in my studies before I was due to start my training at SM Entertainment. As expected I was excited and apprehensive but all the while my mind remained focused on those thoughts of Rina.

Upon returning to the academy she officially handed over the student council presidency to Giselle, admitting that she believed she was always destined to fulfill the role. I remembered her speech so well. How she talked about friendship, kindness, mistakes and regret. Yet she had a meesage to share, a message that evoked feelings of having a common goal as soon to be idols who would go out into the world with a great opportunity to inspire and make such a difference.

As for my friends, they were admitted back into campus when Rina retracted their letters of expulsion. They were confused by the sudden change of heart but delighted nonetheless, keen to be absorbed once again into the universe of music and melodies.

For Rina herself however, things were different. She continued her own training largely remotely but occasionally still showed up for dance rehearsals. She was so talented and it was on those rare dance sessions when I would get to see her beautiful smile again.

We would always acknowledge each other politely, even try to share small talk but I always sensed there was so much more she had to say. I felt an inevitable drift of distance between us. It was a distance she was trying to create, perhaps to try and make amends by giving me what I had wanted even though now this felt far from it.

I could never stop myself from thinking of her and I could never really explain to anyone who asked the reason why. I just missed her and knew a part of me always would.

Upon graduation she took a different path, declining her family's pressure to go into their investment business and instead took a semester to herself to go out and see the world. Every city she went to, every jungle she explored, every mountain she climbed, I felt I was there alongside her. She never failed to send me a postcard of wherever she went with a photo of her smiling and a small message to say she was okay, wishing me the best.

Sadly, I held her last card in my hand for it had been almost a month since I'd last heard from her. I could feel unshed tears in the corner of my eyes at all those memories we'd made. When I tell you a part of me was missing her, that would be the greatest understatement ever written.

I couldn't just forget my feelings for, Rina. It would have been simpler if I could but I couldn't forget our story and in truth, I didn't want to forget her because she made my world so much more worth living just by being a part of it. I never had gotten the opportunity to tell her that but I hoped she'd always known.

"Winter, come on! Stop writing we need to get to dance practice!" Ning Ning called from the doorway beside Giselle. I placed my diary into my bag, leaving the recording booth as we made our way to the second floor.

A few months after me, Ning Ning and Giselle had also been accepted at SM Entertainment too and the 3 of us had come to a mutual agreement to form our own idol group, much to the delight of our management. But in their words, it needed 1 more person to complete it. It was just missing... a spark.

We eagerly made our way to the dance studio, a large room with high-tech equipment and so many posters and trophies on the walls and cabinets showcasing the legacy of the numerous idols who had been here before us.